Maintaining Nuclear Weapons

Published: December 5, 2000

To the Editor:

The article ''Testing the Aging Stockpile'' on weapons designers' doubts about the safety and security of our nuclear arsenal under the computer simulations of the stockpile stewardship program are indeed shocking, not because of any amazement at such concerns by weapons designers, but because of the blatancy of this Pentagon trial balloon on ending the moratorium on underground testing.

From its inception it has been clear that the stockpile stewardship program was not really about the safety and reliability of our existing stockpile, but an effort to keep scientists fully engaged in processes that could lead to the development of new types of nuclear weapons.

It is also clear from this desire to resume testing as well as the drive to deploy Star Wars missile defense that the United States is not committed to nonproliferation or disarmament. In fact, we are prepared to violate or abrogate key agreements essential to the safety of this planet in order to keep on developing new nuclear weapons.

The question today should not be whether the stockpile is safe but whether the world is safe with nuclear stockpiles in the hands of such weapons designers.